Designer Audrey Carden's transformation of her London house
Within an hour of leaving Audrey Carden’s house in north-west London, I cannot resist the temptation to snoop around online to find out what it looked like before she bought it and made it bend to her will. Audrey had said that, although the house had needed quite a bit of work when she and her husband Andrew Mansi found it, ‘the bones were there’. The building dates from 1908 and had not been renovated for decades. At the back was a collection of small spaces created by a less than pretty side extension. Audrey is clearly a designer with vision, because many prospective buyers would have taken one look and concluded that ‘the bones’ were long overdue being laid to rest.
Audrey co-founded her interior-design business, Carden Cunietti, with Eleanora Cunietti in 1996, and today they work on projects all over the world, from houses in Santa Monica and chalets in Saint-Gervais-les-Bains to houses in London and the English countryside. Their work is often described as having a rock ’n’ roll edge, but in truth their style is more varied than that implies. What Audrey’s own house illustrates is the flair, imagination and attention to detail that are intrinsic to all their projects.
It was the desire for more space that prompted the move from nearby Queen’s Park in 2013. ‘We wanted one big entertaining space,’ she says. ‘But that’s often impossible to create in London terraced houses, which tend to have long, narrow rooms.’ While not an enormous house, this one was fairly stout – a little wider and deeper than many built in the same era. With the addition of a new extension at the back and side (after a protracted planning application process for permission to dig down more than a metre), the space now has the proportions of a warehouse apartment. The house is built on a slope, so the newly lowered sitting room in the extension is flush with the back garden.
Back here the ceilings soar, and two arrangements of sofas and armchairs allow 12 to sit comfortably – a few more with a bit of scooching. It is a gallery-like space with sharp, architectural details: the white walls are hung with large-scale artworks and are topped with shadow gaps where they reach the ceiling. From the evident boxed-in beams, it looks as though it took a lot of steel to create this area. ‘There was a lot of engineering involved,’ Audrey confirms. ‘We cut right through the building to create new spaces.’
Another place where she did this was on the first floor, which is dominated by the open-plan main bedroom and marble-clad bathroom, with a wonderfully indulgent dressing area. The mood is luxurious here, with blue, paper-backed, suede-effect fabric on the walls of the bedroom and dressing area, and a tray ceiling in the bedroom painted in the same shade. There are emerald-green silk curtains and honey-toned mid-century furniture. The look ties in with the style of the dining room at the front of the ground floor, which is painted a gloss blue that twinkles with candlelight after dark.
Throughout the house, there are several characterful vintage pieces that have followed Audrey from house to house over the years: one pair of armchairs in the sitting room has been re-covered three or four times to fit into various schemes she has created. And there is no shortage of contemporary designs, such as the Minotti sofa in the sitting room and the ‘Surf’ table by Zanotta in the dining room.
While the budget for the project was clearly healthy, it was not unlimited, and Audrey found ways to make savings here and there in order to spend where she wanted to. A patchwork of stone tiles on the kitchen floor was designed using offcuts from various suppliers, while the striking carpet on the stairs is actually a few inexpensive runners from CB2 that were sewn together. Rather than the poured terrazzo favoured by Audrey’s clients, terrazzo tiles were laid in the second bathroom with super-fine joint lines to create a less expensive but convincing alternative.
What is particularly impressive is that the renovation took just nine months to complete. ‘The key was in the preparation,’ Audrey explains. ‘Everything was designed and bought beforehand, so as soon as the builders needed something, it was there. I thought through all the details, including the shadow gaps and the meeting points of the architrave in the original part of the house with the extension.’ These finer points are not immediately noticeable, but they add to the cohesive and finely finished feel of the house. It is hard to believe that a few years ago, Audrey walked into a barely modernised house with a plastic corrugated roof on a small side extension and began to envisage this transformation. More remarkable still is how successfully she has completed it.
Carden Cunietti: carden-cunietti.com
1/13The seating areas in this room include a pale green Minotti sofa and two vintage armchairs.
2/13The red tones of a painting by Laura Arison contrast with the white walls.
4/13The photograph above the chimneypiece is Anelle’s Cornbread by Danielle Nelson Mourning.
8/13Vicalvi's dark green 'Pine' shade compliments a group of artworks.
9/13
10/13The terrazzo tiles here are from Grestec.
11/13The bedspread is from Shine by Sho.
12/13Ashlar Mason supplied the marble.
Michael Sinclair13/13Audrey lined the walls of her bedroom and dressing area with blue Alcantara fabric from GP&J Baker.
